Free Coffee
by Myshu
Summary: A young panda and an old fox walk into a coffee shop... One wants freedom and the other wants seclusion, but nothing's free in this life.


A/N: It's been a while since I've written proper fic, and even longer since I've done anything for Star Fox. I love this franchise with a piece of my soul.  
If you know my writing already, you know it's going to be pretty _weird_, but stick with it—it'll get good, I promise.

* * *

"God damn! This guy weighs a ton."

Benni dropped the heavy trash bag at his feet. He didn't need to be careful; it was a neo-elastic sack, the good stuff. It wouldn't tear no matter how he tugged, heaved, and dragged it over rocks, which was good, because they couldn't afford a leak. His brothers paid him well to ensure that wouldn't happen.

His partner stood at the top of the hill, smoking a cigarette and watching the dusty road back to town. "Keep it down, Benni."

Benni stretched his back with a groan. "You're killin' me here, Berk. We gotta work out a better arrangement than this. I can't carry the loads all by myself!"

"It's not even twenty yards from the truck to the dumpster, and it's all downhill. Quit your bitchin' and grow a pair—and maybe a backbone, while you're at it."

"What the fuck ever..." Benni grumbled as he stooped over the trash bag. "Hey Berk, I'll bet you this was Jax." He carefully unwound the bag's tie and unveiled the body inside. "Yep, this was definitely Jax's work."

Berk voiced his lack of interest as gruffly as ever. "The fuck does Jax have anything to do with this?"

Benni grabbed the dead lug by the muzzle—looked like a horse, before a 10zom single-shot blaster rifle did some plastic surgery—and turned it from side to side, careful not to get the blood on his gloves. "Look'it there, _pop_, right in the ear. Exit wound's in the other ear. That's Jax all over. It's like, sideways execution style—he gets hard for that kinda stuff."

Berk twisted a look of distaste down the hill. "Are you _looking_ at it again? The fuck's the matter with you?"

The weasel's long back rolled with a shrug. "I'm just curious! There's a story here, man."

The badger stuffed one thick mitt into his coat pocket and turned around. "No, there's a dead man here, and the longer you sit around poking it like some necrofreakiac, the bigger chance somebody walks in on your shit. Then you can tell your fuckin' _story_ to the Salts."

Benni squatted over the body again and started rummaging through shirt pockets, hoping to chance over some I.D. "Com'on, you've done this for years, right? You've never taken a peek, not even once? Don't you get curious?"

"You know what they say about cats."

Benni wrinkled his pale nose, whiskers splaying in annoyance. "Do I look like a fuckin' cat to you?"

"No, you look like a fuckin' amateur." Berk took another drag off his cigarette and shook his head. A blush was creeping into the desert; in another twenty minutes the sun would rise. "Geez, you kids these days, got no respect for the dead..."

Benni clucked and tossed the horse's empty wallet back into the bag. Of course, his brothers had stripped his tags. Standard procedure. "Says the guy about to throw this body into a dumpster."

Berk grunted and shifted on his stout legs. "No, you're the guy about to do the throwin'. I'm the guy on watch. Got a bad back."

Benni closed the bag and hefted the dead weight over his shoulder. "Fuck your bad back... I think that's just something you geezers say, to get outta doing real work."

"Just toss him, already, for fuck's sake..." He glanced at the PDA on his wrist. "Ten minutes."

Benni knew the time—in ten minutes, city sanitation would roll up and claim the dumpster. Some of the bodies ended up in the landfill at Strapp's Crater, and others at the bio-waste reclamation plant on the other end of town, where massive incinerators would finish the job. Berk kept the sanitation routes on his clock, so he knew which dumpster would be emptied where, and scheduled body dumps accordingly—a different dumpster every time. Mixing it up was the key, he'd say, and Benni rarely took his word seriously, but he trusted the old man on that.

The anonymous horse nearly toppled Benni as he pushed it over the rim, but after a graceless tumble the body rested in one piece at the bottom of the steel chute, on a pillow of plastic bags, broken bottles and crushed metal cans.

"God damn..." the weasel panted, brushing the chute's grime off his trousers. "You need bigger help than me, Berk. Son of a bitch was twice my size."

"Maybe if you'd grow your ass up for once, you wouldn't have a problem." Berk crushed his cigarette in his coal-black palm, flicked it into the dump chute after the horse, and strolled down the hill. "Com'on, let's get back to base."

—

Caden had half an hour before Jaysen picked him up from Droop's Coffee Shop.

If he didn't get any 'coffee' by then, his den brothers were going to flay him, turn his fresh hide over to the sheriff and let the law hang it out to dry in the Salts, alongside the sun-bleached skins of the rest of Whetstone's caught and convicted.

Or so they said. Caden was rarely convinced of his brothers' sincerity when it came to verbal threats. If they were going to do anything that violent, they wouldn't talk about it first—it would just get done, and the law would clean up after it much later. Caden had seen that side of his den's work many times in his short years.

He didn't doubt there would be some creative punishment for his failure, however, so Caden got to work while he still had time. He started by grabbing a pack of gum and taking it to the front counter. There was a soft _beep _as he ran the gum's code under the register, and then a cheesy digital cash jingle as he held his wrist up to the register's scanner. From his perch far behind the counter, the shop-keep peered at him, nodded, and Caden's PDA registered the -10 credits.

Caden skulked away, chewing some of the gum—and grimaced immediately. Licorice flavor? Gross. That's what he got for grabbing the first pack he saw—that'll teach him not to rush. Yet that little purchase bought enough patronage to keep the shop-keep's eyes from burrowing into his pockets. When Caden glanced back, the otter's nose was in the holo-news again. That otter never said a word, and Caden didn't appreciate the oily man's beady, condescending looks, but the shop-keep never hassled him, even for all the times Caden pulled off jobs in his establishment. He was either never paying attention or didn't care.

From the outside, Droop's had the facade of a run-down saloon (termite-eaten, hand-painted signboards and everything), though the interior put a lot less effort into looking run-down and easy-going. Modern fixtures such as snack stands, a broken ice cream freezer and flashy cardboard posters for lottery tickets weighed down the wooden floorboards and smothered the 'old wild frontier' pastiche.

Caden took a seat on one the bar stools overlooking the partition between the store aisles and the "coffee house," which was merely some floor space set aside for tables and chairs. A clattering auto-barista was stationed next to the soda machine in the back of the store, which was apparently all that was needed to upgrade Droop's from a boring convenience store to a boring coffee shop.

From the stool he had a boosted view out the west window of the billboard reading: "WELCOME TO WHETSTONE, THE FINEST LITTLE OLD TOWN ON PAPETOON". Sandstorms had nearly blasted away the 'we' on 'welcome,' bird droppings had dotted the 'i' on 'finest,' and in the corner some vandals had sprayed "TURN AROUND WHILE YOU STILL CAN" in red paint.

The Red Brothers probably did that. Caden would always snort at the back side of the billboard, where his Blue Brothers had written: "NOW LEAVING WHETSTONE, PROBABLY IN A BAG. HAVE A NICE DAY IN THE SALTS."

That reminded him—he had a job to do. Caden mulled over his nasty gum while he surveyed the store, trying to pick out the new customers from the regulars. A cheetah couple was meeting over their usual espressos by the east window (he's seen them thrice before), a worker from the steel mill was shopping for beer (he was wearing those blue coveralls with the "BATOM STEEL" emblem on the sleeve), an old fox was playing a game with tiles on the store's dedicated coffee table (not sure if familiar, but has the bearings of a local, if he's decided to sit around and play old people games), and a crow in a biker's jacket was stepping out of the water closet, still adjusting his large, nickel-plated belt buckle (his bandana wasn't red or blue, so he might've been an outlaw from the Salts. Caden assumed the bike outside the shop was his.)

None of these people would do. He was looking for traveler's credits, and the only people who carried those were—  
_Jingle_  
The bell on the door rattled for a lemur entering the store. He cast a wide look around, as if seeing the shop for the first time, and then picked his way over to the snack foods.

Caden slipped off his stool and into the aisle behind him, pretending to be interested in a package of gummi worms. He took furtive peeks at the lemur's clothing—that lump in his back pants pocket, in particular. Just as the lemur reached over for some onion chips, Caden slid around his side, going for a smooth transaction-

_Beep Beep Beep_

Both Caden and the lemur looked up at the sharp sound—it came from Caden's PDA. The lemur blinked and walked to the counter, unfazed, and Caden walked around the other way, trying to look natural. He checked the blinking message box on his PDA to see who had the gall to interrupt.

_*xxxx279800*::unknown::  
I wouldn't do that if I were you._

Against his will to keep cool, Caden's gaze snapped up to the shop-keep. The otter was still perusing the news; he didn't look interested in Caden at all. Caden lowered his brow and cast a shaded look around, trying to pinpoint the interloper. The cheetah couple was immersed in chatter, the biker was strolling out the door, the old fox-

Was staring at him. Or seemed to be—Caden couldn't tell past those dark aviator sunglasses. Caden bit back a scowl and retreated to his bar stool, eyeing the fox the whole way. As soon as Caden sat down, however, the fox ducked back into shuffling little tiles.

This total asshole had a lot of nerve. Who was he, a cop or something? He looked pretty scruffy, even for a plainclothes, and he wasn't wearing any den colors—just a faded brown neckerchief on a black shirt. His dust-colored hoodie was frayed on a few edges, coffee-stained on some others, and pulled up over his ears, barely concealing the scar running down his scalp. He might've been a striking red fox once, but the grey hairs were blending in well for their gradual take-over.

Dull colors, dull posture, dull game—he just looked so... inconspicuous. _Boring_, really. That must've been how he slipped under Caden's radar. That wasn't going to happen again. He had half a mind to walk out and score his coffee money elsewhere, but his PDA read 17:40. Jaysen would be here for him at 18:00, and Caden had already wasted ten minutes. There wasn't enough time to hike down the road and stake out another shop; he wasn't that good.

At 17:48, another _jingle_. This time a woman—a grey cat. She still had her suitcase, fresh from the spaceport, and Caden could practically see the traveler's credits peeking out of the case's top pouch. He couldn't possibly botch this. She went to get a cup of auto-brew as Caden walked behind her towards the toilet and-

_Beep Beep Beep_

God damn it. As the woman whirled to look at him, Caden pretended to sneeze and then walked it off, storming right over to the coffee table. He slouched into an adjacent chair and treated the fox with a long, sulky look. The old man flipped another tile, apparently oblivious.

Caden made a point to check his PDA.

_*xxxx279800*::unknown::  
I said I wouldn't do that, if I were you._

When the motion didn't attract the fox's attention, Caden simply called him out. "Hey."

Another minute passed, and the fox only moved to arrange those tiles. The fuming little red panda next to him didn't seem to be of any concern, but Caden was positive that this guy was the problem. There weren't any other likely culprits in sight.

"Hey," he tried again. "Gramps."

The fox snapped a tile down with a sharp click, and turned the slightest look to him.

"Yeah, you." Caden gave a bristling shrug. "The fuck's your deal?"

Those sunglasses were dark, wide, emotionless—and staring clean through him. At length, the fox sighed and turned his right hand to manipulate his own PDA. It was an older model (fat surprise), but the fox's claws worked the keystrokes as deftly as if he'd been typing with one hand for years.

_*xxxx279800*::unknown::  
You were too obvious. I could see everything. You're not very good._

Now he was just being insulting. Caden's scowl furrowed into a glare. "So? How's that any of your business?"

The fox's left hand moved back to the game of tiles while his right changed the subject.

_*xxxx279800*::unknown::  
How old are you?_

Caden stuck out a petulant lip. "I'm ten."

He got a look—Caden hated that look. Adults threw it at him all the time, followed by some stern words about his language, or the way he dressed, or how he should be in school. Sometimes just the look was enough—made him want to jump up and punch their nosy, patronizing mugs in.

Caden couldn't read the fox's look, exactly, but one eyebrow peeked over the shades, which was the most emotive thing he'd done so far.

_*xxxx279800*::unknown::  
Where are your parents?_

"What is this, twenty questions? You're not my dad. I'm old enough to take care of myself. Been doing it for years."

_*xxxx279800*::unknown::  
With traveler's credits, right?_

"With none of your fucking business, all right? So why don't you let me get back to mine?"

He expected the fox to respond to his vitriol the same way every adult did: with some snappy scolding, or a cuff to the back of the head—maybe a threat to call the sheriff, even. The fox didn't say anything; he turned down his PDA and went back to playing tiles. Caden gaped at him in irritated astonishment before getting up and going back to his bar stool.

That silence bugged him more than anything. Just who in the hell was this guy, really? Fucking know-it-all grandpa. Caden wasn't going to score any coffee at this rate.

When he checked again, it was 17:56. Time to start preparing an excuse for Jaysen, preferably with a lot of colorful words about a certain old fox.

Just as he was staring at the clock, his PDA went off again.

_*xxxx279800*::unknown::  
If you really want some credits, come with me._

Caden spied the fox packing up his tiles. He scooped them into a cloth bag, stood up—fixed the red panda with one long, impassive look—and then walked out of the store without a second glance.

The kid sat dumbstruck, fumbling over a choice. He could stay put, wait for Jaysen, have a cursing match with Jaysen all the way back to the den, have another cursing match with Tye, take a black eye for his trouble and go to bed without supper, or...

Follow this total stranger into the street, after the vague promise of money. His robin told him never to trust strangers, especially in this town. Caden's survival depended on it, but...

This was just some old, lame guy. He wasn't even very big. Caden could probably deck his ass if things got dicey, or at the very least kick him in the nuts and run. Old people can't run that fast, and they run even slower with one ball retreating up their sack.

...But Tye sure can run, and Tye had a wooden whoop-ass club with Caden's name on it back at the den.

Caden hopped down from the stool and chased the old fox out.


End file.
